Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Dec 19/01) - Tim Hinds and Michele Ashby recently spent some time walking through the lush greens of Repulse Bay.

They enjoyed the warm water and mountainous terrain surrounding the bay.

Repulse Bay, Hong Kong, in the People's Republic of China, that is.

Located on the south side of Hong Kong island, Repulse Bay is a bedroom community (by Chinese standards) of about 100,000.

Hinds and Ashby found out about Repulse Bay after arriving in Hong Kong.

Their curiosity was peeked, so it was off to tour Repulse before Kowloon, the new territories and the rest of mainland China.

"The people were very friendly," says Hinds.

"The Hong Kong area was the only place where we ran into people who spoke English fairly well."

Hinds says in Repulse Bay, Nunavut, it's polar bears, caribou and dog sleds.

In Asia's Repulse Bay, it's dog meat.

"You can walk down the street and there's puppies, kittens, turtles, rabbits and birds in the shops.

"You point at it, and they kill it and give it to you for food.

"I tried to get some dog meat or rat, but the guides keep you away from those types of things if you're a tourist."

While Hinds didn't get to sample any local cuisine of the furry, four-legged variety, he did have pigeon, frogs and snake wine.

"You're drinking this little bottle of wine and there's snakes in the bottle.

"When I poured it out, I had scales on the bottom of my glass."

The Asian Repulse Bay has every bit as strong a sense of community as the Kivalliq hamlet.

Feasts are held in the community every day.

Hinds says a group of about six people cook for the whole community and everyone eats in one place.

"There's no washrooms in the standard residential homes, so everybody goes to a community washroom.

"They live more in communities than the family unit as we know it."